PBOC activates open market outright reverse repo operations facility

BEIJING (Reuters) -China's central bank announced on Monday it had activated its open market outright reverse repo operations facility and would use it to trade with primary dealers in open market operations on a monthly basis.

The bank took the decision to maintain a "reasonable abundance of liquidity in the banking system and further enrich the central bank's monetary policy toolbox," it said in a statement.

State-owned Shanghai Securities News said in an article published shortly after the People's Bank of China's (PBOC)notice that the facility was expected to cover three- and six-month tenors and that it would aid liquidity adjustments over the next year, citing people close to the central bank.

The PBOC's announcement said its new tool would have a tenor of less than one year.

"The central bank's choice to launch this new tool at this time is also expected to be a better hedge against the concentrated expiry of medium-term lending facility before the end of the year," the article said.

(Reporting by Joe Cash; Editing by Tom Hogue and Jacqueline Wong)